In search of Natural Clothes --In Particular Foot wear

Kim Huse wrote:IS this PDF anywhere else? I tried to  find it. and the main site said  the link does not exist anymore.

Check Jane Mulberry's post 2 above yours. Unless you've already seen it, in which case never mind.

not quite fully husp level but there's this youtube that makes Edwardian and Victorian shoes by hand. The shoes are made from leather with a wooden heel and a metal shank. I think the least husp part of the process the glue I think she uses.



Also, I found this which is from an earlier period and may be more husp.

Please elaborate on how to make those soles!

I may be sidetracked and obsessed again. I am from the PNW, western WA.  It rains a lot here and I typically slog around in ankle deep mud for like 9 months out of the year. From 2010-2018 we lived on a little acre in Grays Harbor, WA and I began my self sufficiency journey in earnest.  This was borne out of being broke.  

So I purposed to learn skills because I saw and still see repeat bills or repeat things that need bought (in this case, shoes) as a thing that keeps us enslaved, in a way.  When we constantly have to work outside the home to provide for things that we have to pay for over and over again... rinse and repeat...then we die.  I get it that we gotta work for what we have a d we should.  But you pay for things in time or money.  Your money pays for somebody else's time.  So do I wanna be spending my time working doing likely something I hate. Away from what I work for (home, family. Possessions.  Animals.) And not get to enjoy it?  Or do I learn to do things myself and spend more time where I actually want to be?

Secondly. I am a crafty kinda gal.  Also borne out of being poor. And the quality of items just ...isn't...anymore.  Most poor folks can afford Walmart type things. Which for me, literally...the shoes fall apart in days. I'm also a short, fat gal, and shoes either hurt like crazy bc they are made for some skinny footed Asian gal, or they just aren't the way I like them.  I'm getting older.  I get a bit picky about what I spend money on.  Even in the spendier brands, over and over I find the same problems... Can't get the shoe wide enough, or the laces cinch down on the wrong part.of my foot and hurt or cut off circulation. Or there's some hard, spawn of satan, painful, plastic or metal piece in the sole that cripples me up after about an hour of walking on it. And I also like to support local economy first. We are fast losing "makers", because quite frankly China "makes" for pennies on the dollar and those things "made" often fall apart quickly. Forcing us to buy again. That makes me mad, actually.  It's not about racism, it's about quality of workmanship.and supporting my neighbor's soccer kids vs communism and exploitation  and excessive fossil fuel consumption and things made out of plastic.

But I digress.  So I experimented with leather moccasins and tanning leather, wool slippers and moccasins.  Denim moccasins.  I found an Etsy person called shoeology.com that sells these rubber pieces you can put in the oven and then mold to your foot and the glue on with rubber cement. Makes a cool shoe but still not quite self sufficient.  Moccasins had the same problem as someone already said here....mud and muck.  But I got pretty good at, I think it was the Cherokee style?  Side seem moccasins.  The pucker toe was a bit much for me at the time.   We were doing small livestock and occasionally would process a roadkill deer for the dog, so I learned to tan goat, sheep, and deer hide. As well as rabbits. I should say I'm still learning.  Again, I'm trying to avoid chemicals and ordering things.

I made felted wool slippers and experimented with silicone, like caulking for a window bc it's what we had, on the sole of the slipper.  That didn't hold up to wear more than a few months and looked pretty wierd. The moccasins I dearly loved, but I would walk holes in them.  And could only wear them in summer months.

I also researched what I could what Natives wore here, because they had to wear something on their feet to stay dry, right?  I found lime mentioned above ...mukluks.  It's way too hot for a boot in Spring and Summer.  I'm already dying in my rubber barn boots. But there's still mud on the farm. Who wears nice leather boots to much stalls?  Not me, those things cost $100 bucks and they're one.of the few things I can wear to church that don't hurt my feet.  I rub a homemade mix of pig lard from my pigs, and locally sourced beeswax into them to keep the water out and keep them supple. It does darken the leather, though.

So I have read somewhere that boots traditionally had a pig hide sole?  This was because it was very tough (I can attest to that) and also resisted water.  I have yet to try to tan a pig hide, bc we are pretty busy now.on our bigger land.  

I have several salted, fur-on cow hides from our steers we had processed that are just sitting standing up in my craft room.  As someone mentioned above, an animal hide that big is a JOB.  I can't even lift a wet one and neither can my construction carpenter hubs.  We have to roll it up on a bar and use the tractor. I can just barely lift the hide wet when I quarter it. And it's a gross, tedious job that takes days of back breaking work.  2 taxidermy places quoted me about $2,000 to do one hide. They said it is cheaper, unless  I'm preserving a favorite animal, to order hides out.of Mexico for $200 each.  That was pre-covid, mind you. So these hides just sit, so far.  

So I am thankful especially, for the one post about what PNW Natives used.  It's a step in the right direction to a puzzle solved.  I'm sitting here drinking my coffee, thinking about all the things I don't have the time to do.  I've come to the conclusion that homesteaders were home skinny and died earlier because they worked their tails off for everything they had.  Lol. But how many instances of depression, "consumption", cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc did you see back then?  

Today we are so "advanced".  We waste away our lives on a screen (like I'm doing now, haha) and wonder where our lives went, why things suddenly cost so much, and why our children won't come to visit us. Taking a handful of pills a day for our various ailments.

If I can find pics of my various.mistakes, I will post them. And now that I have learned the game changer of using a torch (sigh ...more fossil fuels....) to get the long boar bristle hair off a pog, I may try my hand at tanning one of their hides. If the lard content is any indication.... the stuff.is an EXCELLENT remedy for rough "farm hands", and has done good things for my boots.  I haven't seen it go rancid in a year in warm.weather when mixed with beeswax (I make various oil infusions and salves with it).  Kept in the freezer/fridge and rotated stock deals with that problem..

Any recommendations.on a detailed, step by step instruction book for brain tanning and/or natural leather care?  I have been pulling from YouTube videos and articles, but I want to know how it was done before we had bran and how the Natives did it and how they kept it in condition.  I now have two horses and would like to maybe make them some tack and don't know whether to use rawhide or what exact condition of tanning from the salted hide that rawhide is....is a salted, worked, and oiled hide...done? Does it mold?  Bc some of my hides in storage molded with our wet air.

I started with 3 strips of hide I cut off my salted hides to make a halter/hackamore/bridle for my mare...wetted them, worked them over a 2 by 4 end until the fibers were all white and nearly dry and pliable.  After they dried, they still went back to the rigid, shrivelled up state, so maybe addi ng oil at that point was what I was supposed to do.  But I had to stop and get back to work.  Sundays are my "screw off" days. Usually when my health issues force me to stay settin' and close to the house. Then is when I do these things.  Little projects, bc it's hard to stick with it when it's big. So I will be weaving little baskets out of our swamp grass (juncus), or fiddling with some of my leather, or whatever.

My coffee is gone, so I better shut up now. The hides are staring at me from the corner of my craft room (I am so blessed, now... big farm house. 13 acres).  Have to go buy horse feed today and soak my draft's abscessed foot.  Sigh ...$400 for a saddle finally and he comes up lame...Facepalm...   Gotta go feed all the creatures and sell my firstborn child to fill up my gas tank.  

Thanks for listening to my rambles. This site makes my creative brain go nuts.

Thanks for listening to my rambles. This site makes my creative brain go nuts.



Rawhide is produced in such a way that you wet it, use it and it shrinks as it dries,

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/paleoplanet69529/moccasin-rawhide-how-do-you-do-it-t25923.html

Crazy crow is excellent for supplies: https://www.crazycrow.com/rawhide-leather

https://www.ehow.com/how_7631700_make-hard-sole-moccasins.html

https://www.barneshideandfur.com/rawhide-leather

This week I was traveling and my rubber croc thingies were getting too hot.  I knit/crochet while riding in the car, so I picked up some jute twine for the soles and made some quick slippers for my poor, swollen feet.  They're super comfy, a lot like being barefoot, hit I walked on hot concrete in then and rocky ground.  

Kim Huse wrote:IS this PDF anywhere else? I tried to  find it. and the main site said  the link does not exist anymore.

Hi Kim,

If you still want a copy, you can use the Wayback Machine (archive.org) to grab it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708172031/https://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/resources/AY17-16-Leather%20and%20leatherworking.pdf

This site provides moccasin-making kit with all the supplies and instructions. (also, period-accurate shoes made with out plastics.)
https://www.townsends.us/collections/shoes

At the PDC and PTJ this summer, Alan Booker discussed the basic human metric of healthy walking. He promoted the idea of zero-drop shoes for when it is inappropriate to go barefoot. This is a basic feature built in to moccasins, but soft soled ones have limited life, especially in wet environments.

I spent some time looking for places that made more conventional shoes with zero drop based upon recommendations at those events. Almost all of them included some synthetic material, usually petroleum rubber for the soles. Most of the ones with natural soles were sandals, with not much to offer over going barefoot. The one place I found that hit all three of my requirements, natural materials, zero rise, and large toe box for healthy foot shaping, was Soft Star. Their Dash Runamoc can be customized to include a buffalo hide sole. They fit around the heel and sides of the foot perfectly while giving my toes ample room to spread as fully as mine will when using good barefoot walking form. If you have walked mostly barefoot all your life and have a fully healthy toe spread, they offer a "primal" version of the shoe with an even larger toe box, but their "regular" is quite a bit larger than any other shoe I've owned.

I bought a pair while at the PTJ and have been wearing them every opportunity since. They have been excellent for every need I have for a 3 season shoe, although I avoid wearing them in wet and muddy conditions to prolong their life. I have my Steger mukluks (elk skin with 100% wool army surplus liners) for the winter half of the year around here, and Hunter Wellingtons (mostly natural rubber) for cool, wet, muddy conditions...

Very fun thread. I am making felt and cardboard mockups, perfecting the fit of the pattern to fit my feet. I got it from Sharon Raymon's (Simple Shoemaking channel and etsy store) book How to Make Ecological Shoes For Women. I am widening the toe area to make it so my toes can be spread. Conveyor belt or motorccyle inner tube can be made into bottom soles. Inner tube though is pretty smooth, so might be too slippery.

Daily-ish suggested this thread. I did post a few years ago. But the sandals with wooden soles are still there, I did not do anything with them. One problem is: they have a heel that's somewhat higher. And I'm used to (almost) zero level shoes. And when would I wear such shoes? Not when working in the garden, not when going to a meeting or in a shop. And they would not be 'authentic' for the re-enacting prehistory I do...  

So I did make some 'stone age shoes'. I made them out of a sheep skin (although those neolithic farmers who were living in this region probably did not have sheep ...). With the furry side inside. They worked well to keep my feet warm, but the weather was not really cold then. For the 'pattern' I used the 'prehistoric' type shoe for the underside, but added an upper side. Like a moccassin. You can see about half of the shoes in this photo (me dressed in 'stone age clothes'):



BTW (answer to some questions and comments here before) Dutch wooden shoes are nice for cold & wet weather. If you're used to wear them you can wear them all the time. Garden and farm work ... that's what they were used for in the past! Only they were not worn indoors. People used to leave them at the door (in the mud-room), they had leather slippers over their wool socks.
In this photo you can see me wearing Dutch wooden shoes (but I don't wear them often):

(stamping nettle stems to loosen the fiber, but that's a different thread in the forum).

Darry Wood penned an article on Southeastern Moccasins awhile back. Jeff Gottlieb teaches them now. Here's a tutorial online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Au8eVVAfh38

I've been thinking about this, and playing with the idea of making shoe-soles from roots (something like this, but shoe-shaped). I imagine it will be reasonably durable, and it's certainly way more flexible than wooden soles...

bump bump buuuuump

i need to purchase some winter boots with shovelling-compatible soles, New England winter; i made a commitment...please purple moosage me if you can make them and tell me your price/barter conditions.  thanks!

There's a new video on making early medieval (Anglo-Saxon) leather shoes:

It isn't a tutorial, but still fairly clear.

Eino Kenttä wrote:I've been thinking about this, and playing with the idea of making shoe-soles from roots (something like this, but shoe-shaped). I imagine it will be reasonably durable, and it's certainly way more flexible than wooden soles...

Yes, that must be possible. In an old hand-craft book I have (it's translated from German to Dutch in the 1950s) there are some pages on making shoes, soles, sandals and over-shoes from braided plant materials, like rushes, corn husk (?) and straw.

The Roman Empire was conquered in sandals they called Caligae. They don't look impossible to make yourself. Here's a good webpage that describes the process:

https://www.geocities.ws/legio_tricesima_cohors_tres/campusMartis/MakingCaligae/MakingAuthenticCaligae.html

In Spain there is a traditional footwear in some areas called "alpargatas" made of canvas with a esparto sole. The models have evolved and are easy to find. In summer there are many people who wear them although they are obviously not good for the rain.

Well, you can buy the soles and make them yourself ,https://www.suelasalpargata.com/

Here's a photo of my 'prehistoric shoes with warm fur inside'


And here's my sketch of 'how to make them':

I am weaving a pair reed canary grass sandals or soles at the moment. (The intention is sandals but at this point they could go either way.) I think it could make sense to sew something like this onto something made of leather, buckskin, etc. They are so easy to make and reed canary grass grows everywhere, so I think it could be a good option to have a sole that we can allow to wear out and then have a new one to sew on and replace it when it wears out. The reed canary grass is surprisingly strong especially when soaked and corded. It is one of the grasses that is hard even to harvest because they’re so tough so I’m hopeful regarding its durability.

The straw sandals are finished! I went walking with them and socks and they were much warmer, drier and cleaner than going barefoot. The feeling was very different from modern shoes because of the texture—I am sure that even though they are shoes they would help to build calluses and perhaps could make a good shoe for people looking to go barefoot more often.

I imagine that one could have a waxed canvas or skin “sock”, a split-toed shoe without a sole, that goes into the sandal and over some ordinary warm socks, and that could help make sandals viable when the weather is colder, or wetter.

Regarding wooden soles, I wonder if it would be more flexible and comfortable if there were two separate wooden sections separated by leather, buckskin, canvas, etc.?